So the girls say Helllllooooo! and she laughs and sees a frightened reflection of herself, then we don't see her again until after a few more things happen and that reflected version goes up the stairs to see Mr. K. and comes down stairs and the laughing girls greet her again, "Where ya been?" Each of them saw the same shot of Ormond peeking out from in back of something across the street so they are the same thing happening again and again.

The first time we saw that happen she made fun of the terror in the hotel, because, after all, why be scared of a movie or radio show? So then some more things happen (back to this below) and she dies and in her after life vision of reality becomes Nikki, who gets the part and goes through the whole thing transforming into Sue etc. and winds up on the street laughing again.

The more things that happen I said I would get back to are what I don't know how to describe: On one hand, even though she acts as if she's home free, a dreadful fate does await her and she is killed. On the other hand, the passing of the screwdriver to Ormond looks very deliberate, so I have the sense here of watching some people making a movie (Nikki and Doris I guess). Then, near the time of her death, things become very stylized as the name of OHIBT is embedded in the street woman's send off for her. So I ask myself, who is dying, Nikki or her character? It seems to be her character, but it's hard to see what happens to Nikki (because Nikki seems to come into existence after the death of her character). So Nikki is the reflection of Sue and Sue is the reflection of Nikki. Maybe without the question marks that is as close as I can come to describing I see happening.

It seems that LG can not effect events , other than to enable Sue to 'see', and thus forearm her. My naive take was that LG is a fictional character from 4 7, cut off into a kind of limbo by the failure of that movie to be completed. When OHIBT is completed, she is actualized by Nikki's performance, able to communicate with her across both time and mode of reality.Sue is a fictional charcter, after all, who 'sees' her development further along in the plot and also sees that she is a fictional character ( like in Pirandello or The Twilight Zone). Seeing herself as such is partly why she becomes disoriented. When OHIBT is completed and Nikki wakes from her trance, steps out of character, LG is enabled to rejoin, in a fictional world, her lover and the son they might have had, except the people that played them were murdered. Whoever LG is, the character from 4 7 or the actress who played her ( or, if you insist, both) it still seems that only in fiction, in a movie or fantasy, can her re-union ( redemption) be accomplished. Such is the power of Art, of creativity.**Similar to the 'character fields' interpretation, is the 'many worlds' model. ( Remember that episode of Six Feet Under? )***'..verified..' 'Remember, in this life, it ain't what you don't know that really bites you on the butt; it's what you do know that just ain't so.'Robert A. Heinlein

i keep forgeting to ask this, but so any of you, carl namely, know how the hell does this make any sense to its native title? i know just a litte german and i can still easily see its ridiculousness. i wonder if absurda has to approve that. maybe it was their idea!

i agree that LG watches IE as it goes, with static included, but i dont think that makes the other events of the film less real to the other characters. or less real to LG, as the end makes clear. it was all happening. now as to why, thats where the fun begins

but i still disagree that the polish parts of the film are the unfinished film 4/7, which would have been german most probably as it was called vier sieben. i think its maybe the gypsy folk tale that is the basis, and which cursed vier seiben. maybe this is easy reasoning, but i would think that if lynch explicitly uses film equipment, indeed the shooting of a film of the shootting of a film as he does for the hollywood scenes of OHIBT, that those elements would have been present in the polish scenes. theyre not. which, along with other details, make me think it was not the unmade film but the original story, or folk tale, which ever you prefer. and thats whats playing on axxon n.

and one thing that bugs me about ormonds character. her first scene is her dressed as she was at the end of the film when she stabs dern. in a police station saying shes been hypnotized and knows she is going to kill someone but not who yet. and yet the screwdriver is inbedded in her torso(keep in mind she takes the screwdriver from dern, who took it from crimp's, right before stabbing her). so her story kind of takes place circularly in IE. i mean really, who is she?

Last edited by JFK on Wed Jun 18, 2008 8:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

One thing about these subtitles and foreign names and such. It is good to remember how Lynch has worked in the past. For example that psychogenic fugue (or something like that) that was a slogan for Lost Highway was an idea that came from marketing department or some such third party. Lynch only thought it sounds cool and it kinda fits so he approved it. He is the firm believer in coincidence, just think about Frank Silva / Bob in TP. So he might be cool with the ideas like that italian name Empire of mind just because of that. It doesn't mean they are keys, at least to the right door.

You say limbo I say mambo. But the point is that LG is trapped while seeing almost everything and then she is released. To me this "in heaven everything is fine" idea is little bit too simple. I would like to think that there is also hope in this world to Lynch. I know about fake robins but, hey, if it tastes like butter, who cares?

Thats why this hypnosis / madness that traps LG in her own mind is so appealing to me. When it came to me I felt something that these afterlife interpretations weren't doing for me(and I used to have them too).

We are explicitly shown Doris transform into the screwdriver wielder, of course. She's obviously been hypnotized and lost control of her personality and, it seems, the inability to tell sequence, 'what came before and what after.' ( which is the natural state, come to think, for actors in roles: they do what they are told, then the result is edited, spliced here or there to suit the director and producers. The players might as well be hypnotized.) This is in the scene with her sick son, the doctor, Billy, the butler and a Sue who knows that 'something has happened', ' it's more than that'. Maybe Sue has realized that she is a character on the inside looking out( she's just been 'seeing'.)

Yep, it is Doris who gives me some grey hairs (not that I didn't have them before). There is one aspect in IE that I haven't really pondered at all and it is all those out of focus camera blurs and such. They has to mean something, they are not random. And that interrogation scene is hypersharp, I believe that policeman's face looks quite normal in a different light.

There is at least three mysteries with Doris, well, make it four. 1) she is the one with screwdriver and wound in interrogation scene (wearing same clothes as in street scenes)2) she moves abnormally in hollywood street scenes (I mean there is no continuity)3) in MTTH she comes out of BW image to the streets4) then there is this whole "was she in Poland?" stuff

In my opinion, it is safe to say that Ormand was never in Poland. As far as main players go, only Gruszka, Majchrzak, and Lucas's characters are seen.

To me, the most puzzling of these is Lucas. He is the only character who seemed to exist as a real, ordinary person in both the Polish story and in Nikki's story. Meaning that Gruszka and Majchrzak only appear as ghosts/phantoms in Nikki's world, but Lucas is perfectly "real."

Wouldn't you say that the man with the lightbulb, whom most people identify as Crimp because of the monolog, is real when she encounters him next door? If not, why not? People have concluded all sorts of things about Crimp's relationship to the story, but there is very little information given about him. I can see why the gesturing hypnotist who appears when Doris and Sue confront each other would be seen as a phantom or ghost, but what about the light bulb guy?

Kiddo wrote:In my opinion, it is safe to say that Ormand was never in Poland. As far as main players go, only Gruszka, Majchrzak, and Lucas's characters are seen.

To me, the most puzzling of these is Lucas. He is the only character who seemed to exist as a real, ordinary person in both the Polish story and in Nikki's story. Meaning that Gruszka and Majchrzak only appear as ghosts/phantoms in Nikki's world, but Lucas is perfectly "real."

would it be safe to say that ormond(who acts credited as doris side and is seen in a OHIBT scene, yet the scene is shown as if really happening, i.e. we arent shown the equipment and cameras that we're shown earlierof the filming of the film, as well seeing her as a confused women who may or has already stabbed someone and who may or have already been stabbed herself talking to a cop)(apologies fo the long parenthesis, im just trying to be clear)anyway, does it seem like she is in the l.a. retelling/curse of the story, and somehow in the film and outside of it at the same time, as the symmetrical counterpoint to the polish version? meaning the relationships. the one that consisted of gruska/phantom but gruska wanting polish lucas, and in hollywood consisting of nikki/piotrek but nikki wanting billy. i find ormond fits role of the women in whites character, even if she isnt the actress playing her.as to polish lucas arguing with the woman in white, whos identity is purposefully plainly not made clear,(tho we all have our opinions i know) but obviously her words are terse and threatening in reaction to something lucas has said or did, saying something to the effect that lucas wont "have her" meaning another woman. that "her" is not explicit, but i believe, in the context of the rest of the film, that "her" would be gruszka. she is talking about lucas cheating on her, and indeed he is going out to meet her, which we see gruszka watching fromt the hotel room TV. but then something happened. what exactly that is is maybe one of the kernals for this whole part of the film as i find that is one of main arcs of IE, i.e. the separation and bringing back together of gruska and lucas, because of their love. now if the women in white is who lucas is cheating on with gruszka, and if she is the one killed by gruska, in the warped hollywood version its turned around and piotrek is the one who is dangerous and can make threats, nikki is the one that hides, and billy's motives, like ormonds, like the woman in white, are not clear. thats how i see things grouped together in as simple a way to say as possible.and yes, lucas seems to be at the heart of it all. he plays at probably at least 3 different characters, all existing in differnt times and places. who cares about the woman in white, who is HE really?

Wouldn't you say that the man with the lightbulb, whom most people identify as Crimp because of the monolog, is real when she encounters him next door? If not, why not?

Absolutely not - if you watch the scene closely, you'll see that he diappears into thin air. Like a ghost or a phantom.

would it be safe to say that ormond...is in the l.a. retelling/curse of the story

The one theory I keep returning to here is that Screwdriver Ormand is not part of Nikki or Susan's world, but is more specifically part of L.B.'s world. Everything tells me that A) Nikki splits into Susan, but also that B) Susan splits into the other woman who rants to Mr. K (L.B.). Screwdriver Ormand belongs to L.B.'s world, whereas Doris clearly belongs to Susan's world.

Wouldn't you say that the man with the lightbulb, whom most people identify as Crimp because of the monolog, is real when she encounters him next door? If not, why not?

Absolutely not - if you watch the scene closely, you'll see that he diappears into thin air. Like a ghost or a phantom.

I guess it could be seen that way, as something only she saw perhaps, though it's always looked to me as if he just went somewhere else after she left. But supposing that he is a ghost, doesn't that indicate that he is not necessarily Crimp, whoever that is? Visitor #2, ghostly enough herself, said that he was the man who lived next door. So assuming Dern went next door to see who Crimp was, but then saw a ghost, does that establish that the name of the phantom is Crimp or that Crimp is someone else? Can a phantom live next door? It's hard to see how any of this matters, yet, there it is in the movie.

Yes. We don't know that the neighbor with the bulb in his mouth is necessarily Crimp. I think most of have deduced that he is Crimp, and most of us feel in our gut that he is Crimp, but we really do not know that he is Crimp.

If you really dissect Susan/L.B.'s rant, you'll notice that she appears to be saying that Crimp/The Phantom/Marine from NC/Carnie Hypnotist are all the same guy.

Yes the relationships between these names are all strung out and we only see the illustration of what she says about the phantom with a clip of Maj. at the circus. I've never been comfortable with just lumping them all together; there's something too easy about that. If they are all just the same, why bother to separate them? So that must indicate that they are reflections of one another as ideas, or the perceptions of someone coming from different characters, etc. And ... we have no name for the Maj. character on the street and beating Gruszka. So we have names not attached too permanently to characters and at least that character with no name attached to him. I've read it suggested that Susan's husband who went to join the circus came back. That would account somewhat for her knowing the stories about the phantom and his sister, but it would not account for how he winds up next door with a lightbulb in his mouth.

btw, perhaps a little OT, but when I first saw it I thought that the scene in the woods was in Inland Empire in California, because the "town" of Muscoy looks just like that and people like Visitor #2 and the lightbulb guy would not be out of place there at all. Maybe not now, but in the late 60s when I saw it, people like them were the norm.